Pages

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Happy Birthday Émile Zola! (Mini Bio & Bibliography)

On this
date, 173 years ago, a baby boy was born in Paris. He was named Émile François Zola,
the only child of an Italian engineer. “Zolla” in Italian means ‘cloth of
earth’. He was four years old when his father died, leaving his mother as a
widow with meager pension. His mother prepared him to have a law career, but
Zola failed in his Baccalauréat exam. Before entering journalism and beginning
his writing career, Zola worked as clerk in shipping firm and in sales
department of a publisher. Among his first published works isContes
à Ninon, published when he was 24 years old. When the publication of
his next semi-autobiographical novel: Claude’s Confession (1865) caught
police’s attention, the publisher office fired him.

Zola’s first
major novel was Therese Raquin (1867). In his 28 years of age, Zola started to
build the complete layout of his future series of novels traces the
"environmental" influences of violence, alcohol and prostitution
which became more prevalent during the second wave of the Industrial Revolution
during the second empire of France. Les Rougon-Macquart was the title of
the series, depicted—or rather examined—two branches of a family: the
respectable (legitimate) Rougons and the disreputable (illegitimate) Macquarts
for five generations. Zola: "I want
to portray, at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that
cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress
is making available and is derailed by its own momentum, the fatal convulsions
that accompany the birth of a new world."

During the
Franco-Prussian War in 1870 Zola and his newly married wife, Alexandrine moved
temporarily to Marseilles. And during that period, Zola worked as journalist
for several different newspapers. Right after that Zola began to write his
Rougon-Macquart series.

The complete
twenty series of Les Rougon Macquart (the years are years of publication):

During those
years, Zola had became a political reporter (1871); held his First
Impressionist exhibition (1874) and Second Impressionist exhibition (1876);
took Jeanne Rozerot as his mistress; got a baby girl from Jeanne, named Denise
(1889); got a baby boy—Jacques—also from Denise (1891). On 1894, at the same
year that Alfred Dreyfus—a Jewish artillery officer in French army—was found
guilty by a court martial, Zola published his first novel of Three
Cities trilogy: Lourdes. It was followed soon by Romeon 1896, and Paris on 1898.

On January
13th, 1898 Zola published his article J’Accuse in defense of
Dreyfus who was wrongly convicted as treason which was caused
by anti-semitism in the highest levels of French Army. J’Accuse was an opened
letter addressed to the President of the Republic which was published in the
front page of L’Aurore newspaper. By publishing J’Accuse, Zola has brought his
career to a major risk. On the other hand, as Zola was a leading French thinker
at that time, J’Accuse formed a major turning-point on the affair, and it had divided
France deeply between the reactionary army and church and the more liberal
commercial society. The article is also widely marked in France as the most
prominent manifestation of the new power of the intellectuals (writers,
artists, academicians) in shaping public opinion, the media and the state.

Streets in Paris named after Emile Zola & Alfred Dreyfus

Zola was
brought to trial on 7 February 1898 and was convicted on 23 February; however
he fled to England rather than went into jail. After his return to Paris, Zola
immediately published first novel in his new series Four Gospels: Fecundity
(Fécondité); followed by Toil (Travail) on 1901. The third
novel, Truth (Vérité) was published posthumously in 1903, while Justice
would have become the fourth if only Zola have survived then to finish it…..

J’Accuse was
proved to bring huge risk to Zola, as he was found dead on September 29th from
carbon monoxide poisoning caused by an improperly ventilated chimney. Decades
later a Parisian roofer claimed on his deathbed to have closed the chimney for
political reasons, which was believed to be instructed by Zola’s enemies. He was
buried in Montmartre cemetery; however on June 4th 1908 his remains
were relocated to the Panthéon, where he shares a crypt with other French big
authors: Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas.

~~~~~~~

It was a
kind of mini biography of Émile Zola, one of the most prominent contributors of
Naturalism in 19th century and a major figure in the political
liberalization of France. Looking at his bibliography, I was amazed by how
productive Zola had written his books; he published one book every year on average,
to say nothing of his persistence to write the twenty novels of Rougon-Macquart
series based on his layout for twenty years! Zola wrote each of his books after thorough researches to describe the settings in details. For Germinal, for
example, he went to a mining, interviewed the miner and witnessed their risky
lives, and examining their livings. No wonder, we would feel as if we were
presence in every scene of his books.

In comparing
between his work and Balzac’s, Zola said: “I
don't want to describe the contemporary society, but a single family, showing
how the race is modified by the environment. (...) My big task is to be
strictly naturalist, strictly physiologist.” Jim, one of
Zoladdiction participant, posted an interesting analysis over the
taxonomy aspect in Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series. If you could not decide which
book you should read first at a start, or whether you must read them in
publication order or not, Jim’s post would help you to consider. For you who,
like me, decided to read in random order, the post provides information you need
to know in order to see Zola’s whole perspective in writing the series.

I am a fan
of Zola, although I have only read three of his novels so far. That’s why I
host the Zoladdiction event, to encourage myself to read more (and to buy more
in the end) of Zola. I plan to read at least all of the twenty novels in
Rougon-Macquart series, and hopefully all the others too.

I couldn't resist starting at the beginning with the very first novel, La Fortune Rougon. I'm very glad I did. It really puts a lot of things into perspective: the origins of the family, the "heredity" that will influence their actions, the events that initiated the era and a good sense of Zola's attitude toward the Empire. It clarifies many things I had not understood about the books I had read before.